Pier Angeli (June 19, 1932 – September 10, 1971) was an Italian-born actress.
Born Anna Maria Pierangeli in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Her twin sister is the actress Marisa Pavan. Angeli made her film debut with Vittorio de Sica in Domani è troppo tardi (1950), after being spotted by director Léonide Moguy. She was discovered by Hollywood, and MGM launched her in her first American film, Teresa (1951). Directed by Fred Zinnemann, this film also saw the joint debuts of Rod Steiger and John Ericson. Enthusiastic reviews for her eloquent and understated performance compared her to Greta Garbo, and she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress. Under contract with MGM throughout the 1950s, she appeared in a series of films. In The Light Touch with Stewart Granger, she indeed brought a light touch of innocence to the film. Plans for a film of Romeo and Juliet with her and Marlon Brando fell through when a British-Italian production was announced.
Her next few films were respectable but unexciting: The Story of Three Loves (1953) with Kirk Douglas, Sombrero, in which she replaced an indisposed Ava Gardner, and Flame and the Flesh (1954), where she lost her man to Lana Turner. MGM, after having discovered Leslie Caron, another Continental ingénue, loaned Angeli out to other studios. She went to Warner Bros. for The Silver Chalice, which marked the debut of Paul Newman, and made Mam'zelle Nitouche with the great French comic actor Fernandel. For Paramount, she should have had the role of Anna Magnani's daughter in The Rose Tattoo, but motherhood having interfered, it went to her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the role. She was loaned out again, to Columbia, for Port Afrique (1956). She showed a return to her old form when she returned to MGM for Somebody Up There Likes Me as Paul Newman's long-suffering wife (James Dean had originally been expected to play the starring role, which went to Newman after Dean's death). She was indifferent in The Vintage (1957) with Mel Ferrer and John Kerr, and finished her contract in Merry Andrew, starring Danny Kaye.
Kirk Douglas and Angeli were engaged in 1950s, according to Douglas' autobiography. For a short time Angeli also had a close relationship with James Dean, and there was a great deal of speculation at the time about possible marriage. However, under pressure from her domineering mother, she broke off the relationship and went on to marry singer/actor Vic Damone (1954–1959). This was to end in divorce, followed by highly publicized court battles for the custody of their one son. Her second marriage was to Italian composer Armando Trovajoli (1962–1969), with whom she had another son. This marriage also ended in divorce. Just before her death, she spoke of her relationship with James Dean and in part said, "There was only one love in my life, and that was Jimmy Dean."
During the 1960s and until 1970 the actress returned to live and work in Britain and Europe. Few of her films during that period were notable, despite a strong performance opposite Richard Attenborough in The Angry Silence (1960). She was reunited with Stewart Granger for Sodom and Gomorrah (1963), in which she played Lot's wife. She played a brief role in the war epic Battle of the Bulge (1965). 1968 found Pier in Israel, top billed in Every Bastard a King, about events during that nation's recent war, but steady work was eluding her. It seemed as if her acting career might revive when she was picked to play a role in The Godfather, but she died soon before filming.
At the age of 39, despondent and lonely, Angeli was found dead of a barbituate overdose. Reports vary as to whether the overdose was accidental or intentional.
She is interred in the Cimetière des Bulvis, in Rueil-Malmaison, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
